School officials increase security to monitor toddlers

Thursday

Jan 25, 2007 at 1:25 PM

BY JOE CALLAHANSTAR-BANNER

OCALA – A month after a kindergartner in an after-school program wondered unnoticed away from Maplewood Elementary School, Marion County school officials have tightened procedures to better monitor a child’s transition from class to the Extended Day program.

Julie Shealy, the school district’s executive director of school development and evaluation, launched an investigation immediately after Phoenix Money, 5, left Maplewood Elementary on Dec. 11 and was found a mile away by a landscaper who took the toddler home.

The incident led the boy’s mother, Richelle Beebe, to complain to the Marion County School Board that a child murderer or molester could have nabbed her son.

Shealy said the boy was able to leave unnoticed because the policy was that all children were ordered to wash their hands before they were officially checked in and given a snack. The boy left for the bathroom with other children but decided he wanted to visit his father.

"Now they (extended day workers) are checking in the children first," said Shealy, adding that once the children begin arriving that all exits are guarded and an escort will walk children to the bathroom.

Shealy also said there has been a lack of communication between the school and extended day staff members, who show up after school begins. In many cases, school officials were not providing the extended day staff with a list of students who were absent that day.For more on this story, see Friday's edition of the Star-Banner and Ocala.com